


Smanie implacabili

by Callix (Odyle)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/pseuds/Callix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phillipa is studying abroad in Paris for the year. Lately, her relationship with her father has been strained at best. She's hurt, and she wants to get back at him. Eames becomes her tool for revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
She flushes when her father calls them 'dates', but Mr. Arthur doesn't seem to mind. ​​​

Every few weeks he comes by and picks her up in posh sports cars, a different one each time, looking as if he has climbed out of the pages of Italian Vogue. Phillipa waits at the top of the stairs each time so that she can make a grand entrance. She knows it is silly, and her father and Jim mock her for it, but the way he watches her descend the stairs makes her feel anything but silly.

They go to fancy restaurants where he helps her decide what to get and teaches her about the gastronomic wonders this world has to offer. Sometimes they even share desserts.

He takes her to see operas and by the time she is fifteen she has amassed quite the collection of it on vinyl. On weeks when she doesn't have 'dates', Phillipa lies on the floor and listens to them, absorbing the music into herself. The week her her grandfather dies, a crate full of them arrives on their front porch with no note, but she knows they're from her Mr. Arthur.

Sometimes they simply go to art galleries or museums. They wonder through them for hours, discussing composition, color, and meaning. One night they sit on a bench in front of a Rothko for an hour, just taking in the color.

One summer, he takes her to Bilbao for a week, seemingly on a whim. They wander the streets, soaking in the atmosphere, and Phillipa never wants to leave.

When she turns sixteen, he takes her dancing. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​It is the closest they ever get on their dates. When he draws her close for a foxtrot, it feels as if her heart will explode.

She feels so sophisticated when she is with him. Her father and Jim don't understand. They don't appreciate the aesthetics of the world around them. All of the art they could see, all of the music they could listen to. Sometimes it seems as if Mr. Arthur, aloof and living the life she wants to live, is the only one in her life who understands her.

_   
**Smanie implacabili: Part I**   
_

++ + ++

  
She is twenty the first time she sleeps with Eames. She does it for a lot of reasons, but mostly to get back at her father.

As soon as James was ​​​​packed away to college for his freshman year​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, Arthur moved in​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​. Phillipa had spent the summer out of the house as much as she could and avoiding her father and Arthur when she was. She was spending this year abroad in Paris and took this as an excuse never to call home aside from one time to assure her father that she had arrived in one piece.

Her heart still aches. Phillipa cannot decide if it is the realization that they will never be together or the humiliation at having missed the signs. He's not Mr. Arthur anymore, just Arthur. The familiarity rends her heart a little more. When she first found out, she cried herself to sleep, consoled only by the fact that she wouldn't have to face it until she returned home for the summer.

She has only met Eames three times in her life, though Arthur and her father are constantly ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​telling stories or complaining about the man. Her memories of the first two times are fuzzy, but she remembers well the third. It was the day of her grandfather's funeral. He was one of the pallbearers, the only one not wearing a tie. Eames stayed with them for two days after the funeral, monopolizing the couch. She had spent most of those days in her room on the floor, the voices of sopranos ringing through her body.

"Opera?" Eames asked when he wondered by her room.

"I like it," Phillipa replied and pushed the door shut in his face with one foot.

Those were the only words they exchanged.

She's at some shitty bar with a two Brits and a Polish girl who're also in her program. One of her companions notices him checking her out. She has no qualms about abandoning them to join Eames at the bar.

"Did my father send you?"

Eames raises his glass to her. "Your father never sends me to do anything."

He's so smug. She wants to punch him, but it looks like someone's gotten there before her.

"What happened to your face?"

"Work, darling."

Phillipa sits down next to him and he buys her a drink.

"So you're doing him a favor."

"They miss you."

"I don't want to talk to them."

"They love you."

"I know."

They drink in silence.

"You still listen to opera?"

"All of the time. My roommates tried to hide my iPod dock."

Eames smiled. "You are welcome to come listen to it at my flat, but I make no promises that I won't throw the bloody thing out the window."

"That's kind of you."

"Always, darling."

He's much more charismatic than she remembers. Considering what he does for a living, he's aged well. Phillipa knows he's a conman, but she's at ease with him. He would do nothing to hurt her, but he can still be an unwitting pawn in her revenge. There is no reason at all for her father to ever approve of a relationship between them. He's much too old and he's covered in tattoos, not to even mention his profession.

"So, are you going to take me home or do I have to go home alone?"

Eames looks her up and down.

A quick glance back at her friends' table as she leaves with him, his hand on her lower back, proves that they are astonished.

He takes her back to his apartment. Phillipa kicks off her shoes and lays down in the middle of the bed, stretching out across the bed and leaving Eames little room. He lays down on his side, propping himself up on one elbow.

"You're beautiful," he says as she brushes a lock of dirty blonde hair out of her face.

The alcohol and the compliment interact and she flushes, and Phillipa's glad Eames left the lights off when they came in. She licks her lips and brushes her fingers through his hair.

"And you're quite handsome."

"Really?"

She can see his smirk, even in the low light.

"Really."

Phillipa leans toward him and catches his lips. He parts his lips so easily.

When she wakes up the next morning with Eames curled around her, snoring softly, she realizes that the ache is just slightly duller. He's warm and male all around her. She pulls the arm he draped over her close to her chest and drifts back to sleep.

The next time she wakes it is midday. They're still spooning in their sleep, but she's stayed too long already. Phillipa finds his phone among his clothes where they sit abandoned on the floor. She takes it out in the hall and puts his number into her phone, careful not to leave hers on his call log.

She doesn't call him for a week. When she does, he sounds slightly harried.

"I'm coming over," she tells them. Phillipa has an art history book in her purse and her iPod dock in a box. It isn't safe for the dock at her apartment anymore. The dock had already accidentally taken a tumble down the stairs. She didn't want to leave it around where it might be subject to further abuse.

"That's lovely, darling, but I'm not at home at the moment."

"Well, get there."

"I'm flattered that you're coming round for a visit, but I really can't."

"In that case, I'll break in."

Eames sighs into the phone. "I would prefer that you didn't."

"Well, then you've made your choice."

He's waiting when she gets there.

Phillipa planned on studying, but she finds herself back in bed. When they finish, she sets up the dock and cracks open her art history book. She lays on her stomach beside Eames reading her book as he absently strokes the bare skin of her back and "Bel insecte à l'aile dorée" blares from the dock.  



	2. Smanie implacabili: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.

  
Two months in she sacks his apartment to find his spare key. He is out of town, and she has broken in again. She empties all of his drawers and cabinets, looking for it. The apartment looks as if very careless but through thieves broke in. Everything goes in heaps on the floor that she rakes through, looking for her prize. Eames is imaginative. She finally finds the damned thing at the bottom of a tea tin in the back of a kitchen cabinet.

Phillipa holds the key up to the light and asks herself when it got this far. It was only supposed to be a short affair--maybe a week or two, just long enough to piss off the folks back home. Somehow, two months have slipped by. He is much too old for this to go anywhere and she is only twenty, yet she still finds herself turning down classmates and coming back to his apartment invited or not. So far, there haven't been any angry calls from home or emails full of disapproval. It may be that they don't know yet. Somehow, she doubts that her father would ever approve of her hooking up with a conman, let alone one more than twice her age. In her hands is evidence of that relationship, even if she's stealing it. She wasn't going in for a long con and wonders when it became one, if it is even a con anymore. Phillipa puts it in her pocket, but she doesn't put it on her keyring.

  
Eames drunk dials her that night. Phillipa almost doesn't answer the phone, but picks up on the last bar of her ringtone. He won't say where he is, but she will know when the cellphone bill comes at the end of the month. However imaginative he is, he doesn't think everything through. She would have expected better from a career criminal.

"If you're so in love with opera, why are you in Paris?" Eames asks her, his voice stuttering and slurred.

"I'm studying art history. The exchange program to Paris is just better... besides, they have opera in France."

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​"Art history?"

"Yes, paintings and shit."

She kicks a pile of his shirts out of the way that she dumped on the floor but never cleaned up on her way to the bed.

"That sounds right boring."

She laughs, but he doesn't join in.

"Why I didn't know that?" Eames asks.

"You're not observant?"

"You sound like Arthur."

Phillipa cradles her cell between her ear and shoulder so she can slip out of her jeans before climbing into bed.

"Don't say that."

"You do​​​​​​​​​​​... I miss you."

"Then come back."

The sheets need to be washed, but she won't be the one to do it. They smell faintly like him.

"I can't, darling. I'm here for another week."

"Then I guess you'll just have to miss me until then."

  
She says nothing about the key.

_   
**Smanie implacabili: Part II**   
_

​​​​​​++ + ++

​​​​​​​

  
She can see why her father and Arthur find him completely insufferable, although she sort of likes it. They must have been like oil and water. He's loud, impulsive, a liar, and apparently a gambler. The first date he takes her on that isn't just drinking and sex is a trip to Monaco for a long weekend, and even that becomes drinking, sex, and gambling. By the time they head home, he's completely tapped out. It was supposed to be his treat in honor of her birthday, but he doesn't even have enough money to buy breakfast the last morning. Phillipa buys food from one of the vending machines before they board the train, and she slips him a bag of chips when he starts grumbling about hunger. While he eats, she rests her head on his shoulder for a nap. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

He leaves for another job the next week. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​  
Eames confuses her. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​She knows that he is a liar. Hell, he gets paid well to lie. At four months on, the lies are not so apparent anymore.

He has a habit of sneaking up behind her in public to press a kiss to the back of her neck. It sends shivers down her spine, and she flushes bright red. Eames always seems quite pleased with himself. When they're somewhere crowded, he'll hold her hand or casually put his arm around her shoulders. It is childish, transparent, and cute.

Other times ​​​​​​​​​​​it as if he's ashamed. They never go to the discothèques her friends from university frequent. They go to cheaper, darker clubs where no one ever looks at them twice and she can only assume that he doesn't want to be seen with her.

"Come with me," she repeats for the third time. Getting him to do what she wants is like pulling teeth.

"I have to rest up, darling. Big job."

"Sleep when you're dead. Come out tonight."

"I simply can't."

She hangs up on him without another word. Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.

++ + ++​​

  
The first picture Dom receives of Phillipa in Paris ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​i​s a hastily snapped photo of she​​ and Eames in a bar, surrounded by football fans. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Eames takes the picture with her phone and sends it to her father while she's distracted by a last minute goal. She notices that he has her phone, but "Paris is goood. Miss U" the text reads when she discovers it in her phone a week later. At the time, she thought nothing of it. He was always messing with her phone, claiming to be intrigued by all the applications and such, though sometimes she thought he was reading her texts. Phillipa realizes that he is more intelligent than she gives him credit for. He has done her a favor, even if he didn't know it.

The picture accomplishes something she's been meaning to do. Her father and Arthur now know that she's with Eames. The arm wrapped around her waist, just barely visible in the picture, leaves no doubt as to their relationship in the keen observer's eye. Phillipa knows that they won't miss it. She considers warning Eames of their probable retaliation​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, but he knew what he was getting into when he took her home that first night. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Phillipa waits patiently for a reaction from home.

  



	3. Chapter 3

Christmas passes with no fanfare or presents. The people she hangs out with at the university are all home with their families or off in Italy, taking in the sights. They invited her along, but she excused her self. It would have been fun, but she wants to relax. Even in the quiet times, university life is hectic. Christmas break is a chance to do absolutely nothing for the first time in forever.

Phillipa haunts her empty apartment, taking advantage of the lack of roommates. She leaves dishes everywhere and stays in her pajamas all day. Some nights, she doesn't even bother going back to her room and just falls asleep on the couch. No one is there to judge her.

Eames isn't returning her texts. He is either out of the country or he took her rant about never texting her to heart. It was said in a fit of rage. Her phone chimes at least ten times a day to signal the arrival of adorably misspelled texts, (Eames can spell, he just can't text, even with T9), but he never seems to call. One particularly text arrives at the end of a particularly bad day, and he becomes the target of her rage. She misses them now, but Eames either isn't receiving or is ignoring her texts. Spending the holidays together was probably too much to ask anyhow.

It doesn't matter. A second hand bookstore on her way to school has proved a good source for opera records that she blasts through the empty apartment. Long dead baritones keep her company for New Year's.

She doesn't even have a bra on when she answers the door three days after New Year's. On the other side is Arthur, bundled up against the cold snap that has been making going outside even more distasteful to Phillipa for the past several days. He looks her up and down before pushing past her into the apartment.

"He's rubbing off on you, I see."

"If he was really rubbing off on me, I'd've answered the door naked."

She closes the door, then stands with her back against it and her arms crossed.

"What are you doing here, Arthur?"

"I thought you'd be happy to see me," he says, setting his briefcase on the table.

Slowly, he unwinds his scarf from around his neck, then removes his wool coat. Phillipa recognizes the scarf as one Arthur wore often on their "dates". He's still as fascinating as he ever was, and Phillipa catches herself memorizing the way he looks so she can replay it over in her mind just as she did so long ago. She once retied his tie for him just to demonstrate her mastery of the double Windsor. Arthur took off his tie in the middle of a four star restaurant and handed it to her simply so she could demonstrate.

"Where can I put these?" he asks and her heart sinks. He's come to talk.

Phillipa takes his coat and scarf to the tiny kitchen. There is a rack with there with metal hooks that is probably intended to be used for hanging pots, but she and her roommates have always used it as a coat rack. She hangs his things up and watches them sway as they settle into place.

When she returns to the main room, Arthur is sitting on the sofa, having spread out the blanket she was laying beneath to cover the couch and presumably protect his suit. Phillipa was slightly insulted, but said nothing.

"Why're you here?" she asks, leaning against the door frame.

"Did it ever occur to you that we might want to know you're alive?"

"You knew I was fine."

"Yes, but I didn't want to hear it from _him_."

Arthur almost spat out the last word.

"Well, if it wasn't him, Dad would have found someone else."

"You should have called."

She held up her hands and splayed her fingers wide.

"I still have all ten fingers and toes. You can go home now."

"You need to get over this pissy attitude of yours, Phillipa. It isn't attractive."

"I've been doing fine with it."

"I wouldn't call fucking Eames doing fine. I can only assume you were trying to piss one of us off."

"That was the plan."

"You've fucked up."

"So have you and Dad."

"Not as much as you have. You've dug yourself a hole, and you don't even realize it, Phillipa."

Phillipa shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. The bravado she had been enjoying was waning.

"What do you mean?"

"I feel bad for Eames. The man's in love with you, y'know."

It isn't true. He hasn't called or texted her in a week. She had to steal his apartment keys, and she is still too afraid to leave anything behind there. Each time she goes, she treats it as the last. Eames can't seem to make up his mind about her, though the same can be said for Phillipa.

The last time they saw each other, they stayed in bed for two days. It strikes Phillipa as strange how gentle Eames is as he undresses her. He presses his lips to each new bit of skin he reveals. His hands skim her body when they aren't busy unbuttoning or zipping. It is frustrating how slowly he takes it. Phillipa catches one of his hands and brings it down to show him how wet she is, hoping he'll speed things up. Eames lets her guide him, but keeps his focus and lips on her breasts.

She can understand other people's frustration with him better.

He pulls her close while they sleep on those two nights. Phillipa doesn't mind the closeness. Being in his arms feels strangely right. She is as peace, yet her body feels electric. When she wakes up before him, she lies there in his arms and traces his tattoos with the tips of her fingers, memorizing them all.

"He isn't."

"He is."

Phillipa turned to walk back into the kitchen. She had to get away from him. There is no way she can escape the apartment from the kitchen, but it is away from Arthur, which is what she needs. The room is closing in on her, and she can barely breathe. Phillipa forces the sole window in the kitchen open. A cold gust blows in through the open window, making Arthur's coat and scarf sway on the pot rack.

The crisp air that fills the kitchen is easier to breathe. The cold distracts her from her thoughts, giving her time to calm down.

Eames doesn't love her. He probably just told them that so they wouldn't beat the crap out of him. She can respect self preservation.

She needs to talk to Eames.

He's flipping through the stack of records on the coffee table when she emerges from the kitchen. Arthur seems wholly unconcerned, and she hates him for it.

"You need to leave."

"You need to call your father."

"I will... I just need you to leave."

Arthur rises from the couch. Phillipa presses herself back against the door frame so that they don't touch when he passes her to collect his hat and scarf from the kitchen.

"I'll be back if you don't," he tells her as he emerges from the kitchen, knotting his scarf around his throat again.

"I know."

"Take care, Phillipa," Arthur says before exiting.

She wanders over to the couch and wraps the blanket around herself. Phillipa puts on another record and goes to lay down. Curled up on the couch in a ball, she doesn't move for hours.

 

++ + ++

 

Phillipa calls her father that night. For the time being, she needs her father more than she needs to save face or get petty revenge. Dom listens patiently as she cries over the phone, the first time she has cried since she realized the true nature of the relationship between her father and Arthur.

He doesn't give her any answers. She didn't expect him to. When they hang up, she feels better. What she is going to do is still completely unclear, but when she gets off the phone with her father, Phillipa feels like she can face what is ahead.


	4. Chapter 4

In March someone starts to hang up Eames' cell instead of letting it ring through or go automatically to voicemail when she calls, and Phillipa knows he is back in the country. For a time she practices restraint. Once a day Phillipa calls his cell, hoping that he'll pick up, and every day she is frustrated when someone hangs up on her.

Then she doesn't call.

He doesn't call either.

The week before her finals, she loses her last ounce of patience. She crams late into the night. Paintings and sculptures keep her mind off of him--keep her from remembering how he has rejected her. She has spent hours thinking of reasons why.

Arthur had said Eames was in love with her. If Arthur hadn't been lying to her, then Eames had a strange way of expressing his love.

But as she studies, she can't help but think of him. Everything seems to find a connection back to him. She sees a Renoir of a woman in an opera box and thinks back to laying in bed with Eames after they made love, listening to opera while Eames ran a hand in circles over her back, his hands warm and fingertips callused. Phillipa knows that Eames would have something clever to say about the works pictured in her book on Dadaism. She imagines him ranting about "Fountain," and she can't help but smile.

The worst comes when she imagines him admitting his love for her. They're on the metro, in a vineyard, lazing on the beach, in Phillipa's dreams. A stray lock of hair falls in her eyes and Eames tucks it behind her ear. He traces his fingertips along the shell of her ear, down to her jaw, and up to her lips. Phillipa's eyes are drawn to his lips. She watches him say it. She watches his lips form the words that tell her that he loves over. Everything changes in that moment. Phillipa knows that this is love. That it is true. That the search is over.

She has to remind herself that Eames isn't there, and it has become plain that he doesn't want to be.

It becomes more distracting as she continues to study. When she can't see a male nude without thinking of him, she closes her textbook and retrieves the key to his apartment from where she hid it in her make-up bag.

The streets are empty. She walks to clear her head and think about what she will say when she sees him again. Nothing comes to mind. There isn't much to say.

_You left me alone._

I didn't deserve to be left alone.

Don't you love me?

If you really love me, you wouldn't do this.

Why are you doing this?

It should have never gone this far, but it has. Phillipa isn't sure that she loves him, she's never been in love, but she wants him. She doesn't want him to look at anyone else the way he has looked at her.

For a moment, Phillipa wonders if there might be another woman, but she doesn't want to consider the possibility.

All the lights are off in his apartment when she enters. Only the faint light of the streetlamps finds its way in through the windows. Phillipa lets her eyes adjust to the light before making her way across the main room.

Eames is asleep in bed. He is on the side he always takes when they sleep together. One of his arms is stretched out over the empty side of the bed.

He looks so serene. It pisses Phillipa off.

_I wasn't even his girlfriend,_ Phillipa reminds herself as she walks to the kitchen.

_I was just using him._

She sets a pitcher in the sink and turns on the water.

_He just told Arthur and Dad he's in love with me. _

She carries the pitcher across the main room and into the bedroom. Phillipa stands at Eames' bedside, just watching him sleep.

_This was just a con._

The water goes everywhere when she throws it. It splashes all over the bed and even drenches her sleeves. He is awake in an instant.

"What is wrong with you?" Eames asks. He is up out of the bed, using a dry corner to wipe some of the water off of his face.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Many things, darling. None of which can be solved by throwing water on me."

"You deserved it."

"I'm sure I did," he says, trying to keep his cool, but she can feel the anger catching in his voice.

Eames pushes past her to get to the wardrobe by the door. She watches him strip out of his wet pajama pants and towel his legs with them before dropping them on floor.

"Why won't you take my calls?"

"Phillipa, I--"

She throws the pitcher at him and stalked out of the bedroom.

"Phillipa, stop."

"No. And fuck you."

The key she had stolen was still in her pocket. She fumbled as she pulled it out, dropping the key on the ground. Phillipa crouched to pick it up and so did Eames.

"I was only doing what was best for you, darling."

"What's that? Or was it just that you didn't have the balls to tell me it was over? Did my father tell you to?"

She tried to pull away and let him have the key, but Eames wasn't after the key, it seemed. He trapped her hand atop it.

"Your father said he thought we would make a good couple. Arthur thought it was amusing."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"It would never work, darling."

Phillipa pulled her hand away and stood.

"Have a good life," she said and walked out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

When classes are over, Phillipa fills her suitcases with the records she's collected and returns home. She is glad to leave France. It is too tied to her memories of him and her rage to be beautiful anymore. For her last week, it feels as if she can't get enough air. All of her energy has deserted her even as her school friends throw parties to say good bye. Walking down the streets becomes an exercise in the tolerance of ugliness, as something is sure to bring her mind back to Eames. Phillipa hopes it will be beautiful again one day, but she has no expectations.

Life is simpler at home. Her friends and family are all there waiting for her. She forgives her father and Arthur for being in love, and in turn they say nothing about Eames.

She grows older. She graduates from college and moves on to graduate school. There are many other men and cities. None of them last for long. Some of the men call her callous and very few of the partings are amicable. One accuses her of loving nothing in the world other than the Rodin casts she obsesses over for her thesis and her record collection. Phillipa doesn't argue with him as she throws his things over the balcony to where is standing in the street, screeching and calling her 'a whore.'

None of them hurt as badly as Eames. Phillipa has never been quite able to pin down why her heart still stings when she thinks about him.

It might have been that he was the one who dumped her. She never lets the men after him break up with her. At the first sign of the end, she severs her ties. It makes her feel powerful, even when she has no other control.

It might have been that they spent so much time together. Eames had made her feel as if she really knew him. In hindsight this was simply a ploy to gain her confidence.

Maybe it was because she didn't see the end coming. Things had been going so well between them. Was it just that she was unobservant, or had his betrayal been as sudden as it seemed to her?

Years of thinking never bring her answers.

++ + ++

The summer after she turns twenty six, Phillipa goes home to California for a wedding. After almost a decade, Arthur and her father are getting legally married. At first she isn't sure she wants to go, but Jim convinces her to come. Phillipa thought it would be a small affair, but her father and Arthur go all out to celebrate, and she spends the entire day on her feet, smiling, dancing, and chatting.

Arthur takes the opportunity to have her clear out some of the things she left behind when she moved out for good. He and her father spend the next day with Phillipa, helping her sort through it and pack what she wants.

Beneath her bed, Phillipa finds a crate of opera records, the ones that mysteriously appeared for her just after her grandfather's death. She hasn't listened to them in years and barely remembers what is in the crate.

"I never thanked you for these," Phillipa says, holding one up to show Arthur.

"You don't need to--I didn't get them for you."

"Then who did?" Phillipa looks to her father, who shrugs.

"Probably Eames," he says, as if this is not a strange answer.

She remembers playing " "Lascia ch'io pianga" on repeat to annoy him while everyone else was out and Eames was nursing a hangover, and closing the door on him when he came to investigate.

"Why?"

"Why does Eames ever do anything?" Arthur says as he tapes a box of her books closed.

++ + ++

Phillipa bids her family goodbye, and takes a plane to Buenos Aires where she gives herself a week to find him. She takes an extra week off from work, and her company is happy to give it. Phillipa is one of their best appraisers, but some of the higher ups find her dedication to be a bit too much. In her two years at the auction house, these two weeks are the first vacation time, or even days off, that Phillipa has taken.

She has only a sweater she found while packing up some of her things and the summer clothes she brought for the wedding. As she shivers, waiting for the bus that takes her to her hotel, she decides to put off the search for Eames until she has had a day to shop.

The next day she shops.

The day after she goes barhopping in a neighborhood where the concierge at her hotel recommends she not go after dark. She asks the bartenders about him in her broken Spanish. A few think they might have seen him, but none can say for sure. They're kind--a few of them offer her drinks on the house that she declines.

Just after midnight Phillipa wanders into her fourth bar of the night. Men are playing cards at several of the tables, and the bar is deserted. She has a good feeling about this place as she approaches the bar. By the time she is settled at the bar, the bartender is there, ready to serve her. Looking around, his quickness shouldn't surprise her. She is one of maybe four women in the bar, the rest of whom she is pretty sure are prostitutes. He offers her a beer that she takes. Phillipa gathers two things from her conversation with the bartender: Eames is a regular, and he often comes in with a beautiful woman. Part of her hopes that is a euphemism for 'prostitute,' but the look in his eyes says it isn't.

She finishes her beer and promises to come back another night. The bartender tells her he'll wait impatiently for her return and sends her back to her hotel. She walks back, content at having found Eames and a free beer.

++ + ++

Phillipa makes plans to visit several art museums, but her bed is warm and the morning is cold. She orders room service and pulls the comforter close. The museums will still be there tomorrow. Today is a day for celebration and laziness.

When there is a knock at the door, which should be food service, Phillipa grudgingly crawls out of bed to answer it. The man at the door isn't one of the bell boys or waiters. He's dressed in a leather jacket and shirt he must have kidnapped from the '80s.

Phillipa slides the chain out of place and unlocks the door.

"Phillipa," Eames says, but makes no move to embrace her.

"Mr. Eames," she replies as she leans against the doorframe.

Eames glances back over his shoulder to the empty hallway behind him.

"May I come in?"

Phillipa steps aside and lets him in. Once he is inside, they both reach for the door. She steps aside and lets him close it.

"How did you find me?" Phillipa asks as she crawls back into bed. It is still toasty, but she has to resist the urge to lay down again.

"I have connections."

His shoulders are tense, and Eames refuses to meet her eyes. She watches him from the bed as he shifts back and forth. There is a chair he could take, but he stands.

"Why did you come here?" Eames asks.

"I wanted to thank you."

"For?"

"The records. I always thought that they were from Arthur."

"I don't appreciate being lied to, Phillipa. Why did you come?"

Phillipa glares at him.

"You're going senile in your old age."

"Coming here just to thank me for records I gave you ten years ago is mad. They made telephones so you could call people to thank them, darling," Eames says. He winces after he says 'darling.'

"Maybe I wanted to see you," she says quietly.

"What about 'fuck you', and 'have a good life?'" Eames chirps in a falsetto that sounds far too cheery for what he is trying to accomplish.

"I can change my mind."

"Changing your mind after so long is cruel."

"Ending a relationship and failing to inform the other person is just as cruel."

Eames takes a seat in the chair. He hunches over forward and stares at the floor.

"It was for the best."

"So you get to decide what's best for me? I'm a grown woman."

"You weren't then."

"I was old enough to know what I was doing."

"That doesn't mean it was right."

"Like you've ever cared about what was 'right' in your entire life."

Eames looks up at her and his eyes are bloodshot. He has either been drinking or up all night. Phillipa guesses a combination of the two.

"I have morals, darling, I just don't choose to exercise them as much as others might."

"I knew what I was doing. You didn't hurt me until the end."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, darling."

"I know."

When room service comes, Eames sits on the bed with her and they share the food. He is more of a hog than she remembers, but its adorable when he accidentally gets a dab of cream on the tip of his nose, so she lets it slide. They laugh and joke as they consume the breakfast. It was much too big for Phillipa alone, anyhow, though Eames seems to take everything she wants on the platter before she can get them.

"So who's the beautiful woman? Your wife?" Phillpa asks as she splits the last bit of her danish in half.

"No need to be jealous. We're purely business partners."

Phillipa smirks. "Business partners?"

"Completely professional," Eames says and stretches back to lay down on the bed beside her.

"I doubt that."

"On my honor."

"In that case..."

She glances over at him when he doesn't respond. Eames has drifted off to sleep, his breathing slow and steady.

He seems much older now. Eames must be at least fifty by now. His hair must have gone gray at the temples years ago, and he looks as if he has put on a little bit of weight. The years have been fairly kind to him. His lips are still as plump as they always were, and Phillipa has to resist the urge to lean over him and kiss him awake.

Carefully, Phillipa climbs out of bed and goes to take a shower, removing herself from temptation.

++ + ++

It is Eames who wakes her with a kiss. At first she registers nothing but cologne and warmth, but as she wakes up, Phillipa realizes it is Eames. She threads her fingers through his hair and kisses him back. He's taken off his jacket, she finds as she puts her hands on his back. His muscles move under her hands as he works to pull off the jeans she fell asleep in. Having him there so close, it is almost like going back in time to Paris. Eames cups her breasts through her shirt and kisses her neck. It wakes her up, and soon Phillipa is just as eager to be rid of their clothes as Eames.

They pass the afternoon in bed. He's as passionate as she remembers, but they're both older now, and she is considerably more experienced than back then. She is happy to doze and cuddle with him between rounds, and Eames seems grateful for the downtime.

Phillipa lays there, her head pillowed on Eames' shoulder, and realizes that she doesn't want to leave him in a few days time, possibly ever again.


	6. Chapter 6

The euphoria of reunion wears off quite suddenly three days later.

Eames takes Phillipa out to see the sights of Buenos Aires, or at least what he deems worth seeing. He drags her around the city to see a thousand things she couldn't care less about, but his charisma and his arm about her waist keep her interested. They're both tired when they return to Phillipa's hotel room that night and plan only to fall asleep. However, the middle aged woman seated on the bed, smoking and watching a soap, seems specifically designed to throw a kink in the evening.

"Rosalia," Eames says. He sounds happy enough to see her, but Phillipa notices that Eames keeps his distance from the woman and his hand on Phillipa's arm keeps her back, too.

The woman watches them carefully, taking a long drag on her cigarette as Phillipa and Eames slowly inch into the room. Phillipa can't read the look on her face and doubts that Eames can either.

"So this is where you've been," the woman says. She reaches back to tap the ashes off her cigarette in the crystal ash tray on the beside table. "I didn't think you liked them that young."

"This is Phillipa." Eames pushes her slightly forward. Rosalia's eyes trace up and down Phillipa's frame, then she takes another puff. She is quite pretty, just as the bartender said. The woman is much older than Phillipa's jealous imagination had allowed for, but the years seem not to have subtracted from her beauty, only given it character.

"This is Dom's girl?"

"Yes," Eames and Phillipa say at the same time. She looks up at him, but his eyes are still on the woman.

"Is she in the business?"

"I'm not."

"I wasn't talking to you."

Phillipa burns to say something, but Eames' tight grip on her arm that only gets tighter when Rosalia talks back to her keeps her from saying her piece. It burns in the put of her stomach, and she clenches her teeth to keep it in.

"No, Cobb made sure neither of his children went into the business."

"What does the girl do?"

"She works in an auction house."

Rosalia lifts an eyebrow, then takes one last drag off the cigarette before she stubs it out in the ashtray.

"You're going with her."

"I am."

They haven't discussed this, but Eames says it with such confidence. It has only been three days since they reunited. For him to be willing to follow her would seem odd if it weren't him and she weren't so sure of this. Fear and joy replace the anger as she realizes it is what she has hoped for.

"I hope you're happy with Miss Cobb and your share."

Rosalia turns off the television and stands up. She smooths her skirt down, then offers a hand to Eames.

"It has been a pleasure working with you, Mr. Eames."

"The same to you, Rosalia."

The woman picks up her coat and walks out the door. Eames goes to the door to watch her go. When she is well down the hall, he closes the door.

Phillipa breathes a sigh of relief and flops back onto the bed. The spot where the woman was sitting is still warm to the touch, but Phillipa pushes it from her mind.

"So, what now?"

"That is the question, darling, isn't it?"


End file.
